Driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs – international comparison of 25 countries

In 2015/2016, the first E-Survey or Road users’ Attitudes (ESRA1) was conducted online using representative samples (N=1,000) of the national adult populations in 25 countries across the world. The aim of the survey is to collect comparable national information on road users’ attitudes and to provide scientific support for road safety policy. In total, the ESRA1 survey covers almost 27,000 respondents, among which more than 16,000 regular car drivers. The present paper is giving an overview of the results on impaired driving. Drink-driving was reported by 30% of the drivers and drug-driving by 14%. The national results differ substantially, ranging from 11 to 43% for alcohol and from 3 to 24% for drugs. Different factors have been found to be associated with impaired driving, among others ‘gender’, ‘personal acceptability’ and ‘perceived likelihood of being checked for alcohol, respectively for drugs’. The intention is to repeat this survey on a triennial basis, retaining a core set of questions which will allow the development of time series of road safety performance indicators.